


Look At Us Now

by fandomlander



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bickering, Enemies to Lovers, Fix-It, Humor, M/M, POV Alternating, Pining, Post-TRoS, Sharing a Room, Slow Burn, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 08:34:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22493128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomlander/pseuds/fandomlander
Summary: Fix-it fic for TROS.Inspired by the art and posts of Hux and Ren/Ben meeting at the Resistance base.Hux finds himself in a cell, waiting to be interrogated by the Resistance. Big is his surprise when it's no other than his former Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren himself, that walks in to do the job, now claiming to be the redeemed Ben Solo.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 6
Kudos: 68





	Look At Us Now

**Author's Note:**

> I really needed to write this for myself, to have at least some closure for what TROS did to massacre Hux's character.  
> I figured I might as well share it on here.

Hux was seated on a wobbly wooden chair. In his arms rested a purring Millicent.  
Despite all they had just been through -the most of it a blank space in Hux's mind- Millicent still looked rather alright. Although her fur had been dirtied a bit and one of her whiskers was singed, Hux having no idea how that could have happened. He was relieved she was with him though.

He couldn’t help but wonder how he looked. His leg was throbbing with pain, the wound on it having only been hastily and thus badly bandaged. His uniform was a downright mess and if anyone would have seen him like that on his ship, he would have been affronted and have executed the witness on the spot. Yet he wasn’t on his ship, and at the moment he had greater issues that the current state of his uniform, however humiliating.

One of those worries was why he was here, at what he assumed was the Resistance base.

Beside Millicent, he was alone in the cell. Well, more a room than a cell really, sparcely decorated with only the small table standing between two opposing chairs. The walls white and bare. He figured his sollitude wouldn't last long. The chair standing empty at the other side of the small table told him he wouldn’t be alone for that much longer.

The chronometer on the wall -the only piece of decoration there- was not moving. Whether on purpose or simply because the old thing was broken, Hux didn’t know. He wasn’t aware how long he had been in the small cell/barren room. How long he had been unconscious before that. 

If one were to ask him how he had found himself here, he would have to withhold the answer simply because he found himself not able to retrieve it from his mind.

He remembered the traitorous former stormtrooper shooting him in the leg. And he remembered knowing that his death would be inevitable if he stayed in the First Order. Well… Final Order, as it had been called under the reign of that supposedly long dead monstrous Palpatine. Really, did no one stay did anymore?  
The last thing he truly remembered was heading back to his living quarters to grab Millicent before he planned to make a run for it in one of the escape shuttles.

He figured Dameron must have come after him for some -most likely heroic- reason. Hux detested the man, really. He would have been fine on his own, and the fact that he had been slipping snippets of information to the Resistance hardly meant he had any loyalty nor sympathy for them or their cause.

Yet he found himself with them now, most likely. And held in a cell no less.  
His faith unsure. Once again.

Hux scoffed to himself. An unsure faith was nothing new. His faith had been unsure for the past year. With Ren at the helm of the First -No, Final, his mind corrected him- Order as the Supreme Leader. Supreme Failure more like it. No wonder it had all gone to hell. No wonder his life had been miserable. That insufferable Pryde given a rank above him. He had been forced to leave his _Finalizer_ behind and move to the _Steadfast_ , all so Ren could keep him close out of distrust. The kriffing bastard. Hux was glad he had betrayed him, and if he hoped for anything at all before his untimely demise would come, it was to hear of the news that Kylo Ren had died. That it had been his information, slipped to the resistance, that had a play in that wretched man’s end.

The door of his little cell opened and it shocked Hux out of his thoughts, surprised that he had allowed himself to reminisce so deeply that he hadn’t heard the footsteps until it had been too late.

Hux looked up, facing the door. He nearly dropped Millicent out of his lap when he saw who entered his cell.

“You,” Hux hissed, at the same time Kylo Ren did.

It pleased Hux that Ren seemed equally surprised to find him here. His brown eyes were large, almost comically so. And his mouth, crooked as it was, hung open in surprise.

“What, they didn’t warn you about who you would be interrogating?” Hux asked, doing his best to sneer despite all the conflicting emotions he himself was feeling. “I assume that is why you’re here, not?”

Why was Ren here? He took in the change of clothing Ren was wearing. Gone were all the heavy layers, the cape, the ridiculous helmet. He was wearing simple leggings and a loose black shirt. His face still covered with blood and dirt from the battle he had clearly been in. Hair sticking to it, matted with blood  
Hux was no fool.  
It was obviously clear that Ren had decided to switch sides. Resistance scum now. Probably lured to the other side by that force-sensitive girl.

“How are you alive?” Ren asked, still standing frozen in the doorway, “the _Steadfast_ blew up, I know that much. So how in Sith Hell are you here?”

Hux’s lips raised in a nasty smile. “I could ask you the same.”

Ren seemed to recover from the initial shock and stepped fully inside the room, closing the door, not locking it. He probably felt cocky, Hux figured, with all those mystical powers of his at his disposal. Sure that Hux couldn’t overpower him and leave the cell, thus seeing no need to lock the door. The very action, however small, was a taunt. Hux was sure of it. Ren telling him how weak he thought him to be by deeming the unlocked door not a threat.

Or perhaps Hux was just exhausted and overthinking every little thing.

Hux gritted his teeth, watching Ren as he stepped towards the chair, not yet sitting down on it.

“I can see the old saying is true. Vermin is hard to kill,” Ren said. His expression was unreadable now, the initial shock at seeing Hux cleared from his face.

Hux scoffed at the petty insult. “That is not an old saying. Also, I could say the same.”

“They told me the First Order spy was in this room. Dameron seemed pleased to withhold a name. I can now see why,” Ren said as he finally sat down. “I must say that I’m surprised that the spy turned out to be you. Didn’t figure you had anything but blind loyalty to the Order in you.”

“Loyalty to what the Order used to be,” Hux corrected him, “not the mockery that you made of it.”

Ren remained silent at that, eyes seemingly searching his face. Then they dropped down, staring at Millicent, lips turning up in a smirk. “You have a cat.”

Hux wrapped his arms around Millicent just that bit tighter. Any other cat would have felt threatened at the pressure and would have clawed or wrestled itself free. Not Millicent, she merely purred just that bit louder and blinked up slowly at her owner.

“You will not take her,” Hux hissed. He wouldn’t allow it. Not Millicent.

Ren smiled, the expression on his face triumphant, “The once mighty General Hux, fond of a cat. If you cooperate, I will let you keep it. I you don’t, well,” Ren had the audacity to make a tutting sound, “well then I’ll just have to kill her, won’t I?”

“You wouldn’t,” Hux bit.

“I’ve killed so many I lost count. You think I would hesitate to kill that ginger mutt?”

Hux raised his chin and bared his teeth. The weight of the blade in his sleeve a comfort despite it all. He would kill Ren if he ever dared to touch a single hair on Millicent.

“You’re what? A Jedi now,” Hux asked, spitting the word Jedi out like the insult it was, “you wouldn’t harm her.”

“Don’t make this a dare, Hux. You won’t like that. Nor will your cat,” Ren threatened.

“What does the Resistance want with me?” Hux asked.

Ren let slip one of those hateful smiles, the kind that set Hux’s blood boiling. “You’re in no position to be asking me question, General.”

The former title was spit out like it was a curse word, something filthy. Only used so the memory of what it once meant could stab at Hux.  
Hux would have liked to say that the taunt didn't work, but regretfully it did. His former title a heavy loss.

“I can see the two of you are having fun,” Dameron said as he entered the room. He at least had the sense to lock the door behind him. It seemed he was less thrusting of Hux’s incapability to escape, force user present or not.

“Now, General Hux. Or just Hux now, I suppose. I bet you’re probably wondering why I knocked you out and brought you back here to the Resistance.”

Hux said nothing, instead leveling Dameron with a glare.

Dameron held his gaze for a while before continuing, “I figured, as you were the spy and all, you would consider changing sides and help us in tracking down what remains of the former First Order. There are several high-ranking officers still on the run. We would hate for them to build something new out of the ashes of the First Order. Surely you can provide us with some insightful intel, as you have been doing for the past months.”

“Months?” Ren echoed angrily.

Both Hux and Dameron ignored him.

“And you need me for that? You’d trust me, after all I have done?” Hux questioned. The Resistance were fools if they did. He had no loyalty to the Resistance, but he was no fool. He needed them, for now. Wounded as he was, he wouldn’t make it far on his own.

Dameron grinned, showing white teeth. “No, you are right I don’t trust you. That’s why Ben is here.”

“Ben?” Hux huffed out, amused, before he could stop himself. His eyes slid to Ren -Ben?- quickly, fearing the invisible force around his throat as it had been so often during the past year when he had let insults slip. Although, he remembered, never as hurtful again as it had been in the throne room. After that, it had always been just a presence, a warning as such.

He didn’t feel the force around his neck, although Ren looked positively murderous. It became clear then to Hux that Ren was trying to control himself from reaching out with the force and inflicting harm.

Huh, interesting, Hux thought. It seemed Ren was actually trying to change. A masochistic part of him wanted to test how far he could drive Ren before he would break that self-control Ren thought he had.

But before Hux could say anything else to Ren, Dameron spoke up, no doubt sensing the darkening mood in the room.

“Ben is here to have a little look inside your mind and inform us of your loyalties.”

“And what if you don’t like what he finds?” Hux asked, ignoring the dreading fear he felt at the prospect of Ren rummaging around inside his mind.

Dameron shrugged. “Jail and trial perhaps if you’re lucky. Possibly execution. A lot of people want you dead, Hugs.”

Hux bared his teeth at the use of that dreaded nickname, memories floating to the forefront of his mind from when Dameron had tauntingly called him that before, and the tragedy that had followed. “Don’t call me that.”

Dameron continued, unfazed though with a grin now pulling his lips up. “Yet I’m sure that if you prove yourself to be a worthy ally for us, many will also come to forgive you in due time.”

“You really believe that?” Hux scoffed, “You think I’m naive? I destroyed planets! Planets filled with people that were no doubt precious to members of your Resistance. There is no way they’ll let me live out my life as one of you.”

“I’ll deal with that when it comes to it,” Dameron said, “first though, I need to be sure you’re even worth all that hassle to begin with. Ben?”

Ren nodded like the docile thing he had seemingly become now after switching sides, happily doing the bidding of their former enemy. Hux could see him brace himself, those brown eyes locking with his.

“Don’t resist me,” Ren warned.

Hux couldn’t help the fear that spread through him like a burning fire. He really didn’t like the prospect of Ren using the force on him. He prepared himself as well, letting go of Millicent so he wouldn’t accidentally hurt her if it all became too much.   
Loyal as she was though, she remained on his lap even without his arms holding her there, the weight of her comforting.

“ _How sweet_ ,” the mocking voice of Ren sounded inside his head. 

Hux gasped, not used to hearing someone talking inside his head. It felt much too intimate, closer than a whisper. He pushed his eyes closed when he felt a light push, and then Ren was inside. It didn’t hurt as much as Hux had expected yet it wasn’t painless either. He clenched his mouth shut, refusing to scream as he had heard so many prisoners done before him, when Ren had interrogated them and Hux had stood by just outside the door to wait for the information that Ren would rip out of their mind. And now it was his turn.

“ _Ironic, not?_ ” Ren commented inside his mind.

“ _Do you need to do that? Commenting on everything that you see inside my mind. It’s rather annoying,_ ” Hux said out loud, a whining edge to his voice that he was embarrassed to hear, “ _just get on with it. Search my mind for what you must._ ”

The scoff that resounded inside his mind send a shiver down his spine. “ _Why? We both know you’re not loyal to the Resistance. I don’t need to search your mind to know that much_.”

Hux gritted his teeth, projected as best as he could an image of how he’d like to slit Ren’s throat. He felt satisfaction as he saw the red spurting from the fatal wound he inflicted on Ren’s neck.

“ _Careful, I can play games too Hux_.”

Ren pushed an image inside his mind. Of Hux, being dragged by Ren into the jungle of the Resistance base they were no doubt now residing on. Then Ren, striking him down with a lightsaber -not the red unstable lightsaber Hux had grown so used to seeing, even in his nightmares, but a blue one. Hux saw himself get sliced in half, the wounds cauterized and bloodless. Too clean for the gruesome act that had been committed. Hux recoiled as he saw his body fall in two pieces to the ground, resembling how he had found Snoke. The two deaths too much of a resemblance to be a coincidence, yet that information, now almost confirmed to be true by the vision Ren had forced upon him, was not something Hux had ever doubted. He wanted Ren to know as much. That he wasn’t as cunning as he thought himself to be.

“ _I always knew the truth of it_ ,” Hux thought, wanting to lash out for what Ren had dared to show him, “ _that it had been you who ended Snoke and not that scavenger girl_.”

“ _How astute of you_ ,” Ren remark dryly.

“ _You knew that I knew?_ ” Hux thought. That did take him by surprise. He had figured Ren would have killed him, if he had known that Hux suspected the truth.

“ _Of course I knew. You are many things, Hux. Foolish is not one of them_.”

“ _A compliment?_ ” Hux thought dryly.

“ _Don’t get used to it_.”

Ren gave another push, more painful this time. Searching for things. What, Hux didn’t know. Ren had already told him he didn’t need to search his mind to know his loyalty wasn’t with the Resistance, but what was the meaning of it then. Hux hated this. Too many memories he wished no one would see. Wished he himself could even forget. Yet, those memories were exactly what Hux’s mind went to, and Ren greedily pulled at them, wanting to see what Hux was so desperate to hide.

“No…” Hux tried to push Ren out of his mind, but he didn’t know how.

“ _Show me. Don’t resist_.”

“Stop this,” Hux demanded, voice weak, “you utter bastard,”

“ _What are you so desperate to hide from me, General_?”

Ren pulled once more and Hux wasn’t strong enough to stop him this time.

His father, beating him. Calling him useless. Weak.  
Hux crying, only a child.   
His father beating him with his belt, yelling at him to man up and stop his foolish whimpering.  
His skin bruised and bleeding after he was left alone.

His fellow cadets at Arkanis Academy, teasing him with his red hair and his slender built. Calling him a bastard.  
Hux, at night, alone in his bunk. Willing the tears not to spill from his eyes because he felt so alone.  
He’d always felt so alone.  
His hands, clutching at the bruises from where they had kicked him.

Millicent. A tiny kitten back then, Hux a only a Major.  
Both hurt and dirty after a mission. Both alone.  
He rescued her. Felt less alone ever since then.

Snoke.  
The force, the split lip, the bruises, the humiliation.  
Snoke, finding out about Millicent after ripping it from his mind. Threatening to kill her. Sending visions inside of his mind of how he would do it. And reminding him that pets had no place in the Order. That he was foolish and weak for keeping her.

Millicent again, snuggled up against Hux and purring deeply.  
Hux was in his uniform, on his bed in his quarters aboard the Finalizer.  
No longer crying. He wasn’t a child, and he wasn’t weak. He wouldn’t cry.

And then finally Ren himself. Choking him with the force, slamming him against the console in the shuttle high above Crait.  
The next day, as Hux stood bare in front of the full-length mirror in his sleeping quarters.  
His pale skin, littered with blues and greens and yellows.  
Millicent, pushing her head softly against his leg.

And the year that followed after that.

“No,” Hux grunted. Enough.

He pushed back. Refusing to be seen so weak.  
He pushed and he tugged, dragging Ren with him as he went deeper.

To the image of his father. Dissolving in a bacta tank, bloated and eyes bulging.  
Hux had laughed.

Of his fellow cadets, all the names and faces of his tormentors held inside his mind with the intention of eventual revenge, however long it would take. One by one, their lives ended at the hands of Hux or those who were loyal to him like Phasma had once aided him in ending his father. 

Snoke, dead on the floor. 

“ _Ah, that one not your doing_ ,” Ren reminded him.

“ _Doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the sight of him cut in half_.”

“ _Hmm. That only leaves me, doesn’t it? Your hated Supreme Leader_.” Ren mocked, sounded anything but fearful of his own life. “ _The only one of your tormentors that still breathes_.”

“ _Not for long. Your underestimation of me will be your downfall_ ,” Hux promised.

Ren actually chuckled at that, and another shiver ran down Hux’s spine. “ _You think you ever could. I’m aware of everything. Of that little knife inside your sleeve, that you think you hide from me_.”

Then Ren showed him the image again, of Hux in two cauterized pieces in the jungle. “ _That’s your destiny, Hux_.”

Hux knew it was. Once he had held dreams of a grand future, of being an Emperor. A golden crown resting on his head as he stood in front of a large crowd of loyal people, cheering for him, in awe of him. No one above him, no one to answer to. No more tormentors. No more kriffing bruises.  
Now he knew his demise was near.

“ _It doesn’t have to be_.”

Even inside of his own head, he could hear the hesitation in Ren’s voice.

“ _What?_ ”

“ _Your death. It doesn’t have to be your destiny_ ,” Ren repeated, sounding a bit surer of himself now, “ _Dameron said he would spare you if you turned to the Resistance_.”

“ _Like you have? Running to the Resistance like a bitch with it’s tail tucked between it’s legs, back to mommy?_ ”

Hux could feel Ren’s growl more than he could hear it, a shiver running across his body.

“ _So you prefer death then_ ,” Ren said, and there was a sort of finality to it.

“ _No_ ,” Hux said quick, before Ren could retreat out of his mind, “ _what do you propose_.”

“ _So now you'll listen? Who’s the little bitch now?_ ” Ren asked, sounding so very smug.

“ _Bastard_.”

“ _You need me, be careful what you call me from now on_ ,” Ren reminded him, “ _I’ll lie to Dameron. Tell him I saw loyalty for the Resistance and it’s cause inside your mind. Tell him you were brainwashed since birth to be part of something you never really understood. A cause you were born into, yet no longer loyal too_.”

“ _Why?_ ” Hux asked, “ _I’d figured you’d be cheerful at the thought of my nearing demise_.”

The memory of Hux, standing in front of the full-length mirror in his quarters. The bruises on his skin, on his neck. Bruises that Ren had caused.

“ _I didn’t know_ ,” Ren said, his voice apologetic, “ _any of it. Crait was a haze. I was… not in a good place._ ”

“ _Not in a good place for the whole year that followed after that?_ ” Hux questioned. 

“ _I never hurt you again like I did in Snoke’s throne room, or on Crait,_ ” Ren said, defensive of himself and his actions as the pity excuse of a Supreme Leader he had been.

His words meant little to Hux. He didn’t care if Ren was sorry for what had happened or not. “ _No, you only humiliated me in every way that you could, appointing Pryde and taking the Finalizer away from me._ ”

“ _You would have done the same_ ,” Ren simply said, and that silenced Hux because he was right, Hux would have. Worse, probably, as well.

“ _Give the Resistance a chance, Hux_ ,” Ren said, voice soft, “ _maybe you’ll find that you’ll like it here after all_.”

Hux scoffed. “ _Not a chance. I hate everything the Resistance stand for, and I refuse to be a part of it. First chance I get after my leg is healed, I’m out of here_.”

“ _They’ll never let you go_ ,” Ren reminded him, the cruel edge in his voice back, “ _they’ll chase you to the end of the galaxy if they’ll have to, you know that._ ”

“ _Them? Or you?_ ” Hux questioned, “ _would you chase me, if they ordered you to? Do you listen to them now, like some docile pet they keep? On a leash, only unleashed when they see fit. Like now, when they need you to interrogate me_.”

“ _You’re stubborn_ …”

“ _And you’re a traitorous brat. Now get out of me head, Ren_.”

“ _It’s Ben now_.”

“ _I don’t give a flying kriff what you have decided to call yourself this time,_ ” Hux sneered, “ _you haven’t changed, no matter how badly you want to believe that you have. I give it a few days and you’ll be driving your lightsaber through the walls of the Resistance base, you tantrum throwing child!_ ”

Now Hux could feel a pressure against his throat and he was almost welcoming it, shoving the feeling of it back into Ren’s face to prove his point.

“ _You dare speak to me like that! Do you so foolishly forget that I’m your last hope to get out of this with a resemblance of freedom?_ ”

“ _I don’t need you,_ ” Hux thought, lacing his thought with as much venom as he could muster, “ _lie for me, or don’t. I don’t care. I’ve always managed perfectly on my own, and I’ll manage now as well. Surely, the Resistance, as high and noble as they think of themselves, wouldn’t just straight up kill me._ ”

The pressure around his throat vanished. “ _Perhaps. But they won’t let you roam around freely either. You’d really be content with a life sentence?_ ”

“ _Just get out of my head._ ”

Ren, much to Hux’s surprise, complied. The pressing presence he had felt inside of his mind was gone. A headache starting to build in it’s place.

“And?” Dameron asked, as soon as Ren turned his face down with what seemed exhaustion.

“He’s loyal,” Ren lied, very much to Hux’s surprise.

**Author's Note:**

> Updates will probably be slow since I have so much going on, will try for weekly updates though.


End file.
